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I'm looking for a little help as I plan a trip to Costa Rica during the first couple of weeks of May, which is coming up rather quickly! We are traveling to Costa Rica for 15 days to see if Costa Rica is the right place for us to retire. There are three of us going, my wife, a mutual friend and I (mutual friend's hubby is interested, but cannot get away just now).

For the 15 days we are there, we are planning to use AirBnB to better integrate into the communities. We would like to visit three separate locations with our eyes on the Central Valley, Quepos, and Limon. However, we are open to suggestions for other areas we should visit (we have considered and eliminated Guanacaste).

So, I have some questions about living in Costa Rica, such as:

1. How do I get my Roku to work? Does anyone have experience using a VPN with Roku?
2. We don't necessarily have to be grouped with other expatriates, but would like some advice on places that have decent services, but are not prohibitively expenses. We would prefer to stay away from huge tourist areas.
3. Does anyone have any advice for someone who has food allergies to wheat and dairy?
4. What were the first six months/year like for people that have moved to Costa Rica? What are some of the lessons learned?
5. What is the best way for us to get around while we are there? We don't have an unlimited budget, but can reasonably afford local flights, as necessary.

Sorry I didn't see your post earlier. My husband and I have been going to Costa Rica since 2003. Even bought land there. since you already went and returned, I'll spare my advice on planning a vacation and instead warn you not to buy land there after falling in love with it. A lot of people do. We did after diligently researching how to cover ourselves, BUT ...

We had to walk away from a lot near the beach after crooked attorneys signed documents "witnessing" us transferring ownership to someone else. Then when we tried to hire an attorney to fight it, we got taken every step of the way. The legal system is stacked against foreign owners and CR attorneys have full reign to take advantage of us/them.